DIY Hand-painted Poinsettia Christmas Ornament Tutorial

Well, it’s Christmas time once again.  One of my favorite (somewhat new) family tradition is making our very own DIY ornaments.  We started this tradition last year and it was such a great experience that we decided to make it a yearly family tradition!  In the following tutorial, we are going to show you how to make a hand-painted Christmas ornament with a poinsettia design.

Last year was the first time that we did this.  We actually did it as a family activity with my sister and daughter.  It was such a great bonding time.  We shared a lot of laughs while each creating our unique hand-painted Christmas ornaments.  The best part is that we now have keepsakes and Christmas ornaments that decorate our Christmas tree and immediately remind me of the fun memories that we had while doing the project. Perhaps you want to adopt this tradition, too!

In all honesty, as the years have gone by my Christmas tree has gone from having mostly generic ornaments to almost having entirely ornaments that are either keepsakes (ornaments given to us as gifts or special ornaments like “baby’s first Christmas” and anniversary ornaments).  There’s also a good few that are now hand-made, DIY ornaments as well.  Some of these ornaments were made by my daughter in school and now some are DIY ornaments made by the family.  It really does warm my heart to see these ornaments adorn our tree because immediately the memory of what it represents comes to mind.  As time goes by, I truly appreciate having intentional and meaningful things around me.

I chose the Poinsettia because I wanted a colorful, floral motif that was associated with Christmas.

Let’s get started with our project!

Supplies Needed for the Handpainted Christmas Ornament

• Ceramic ornament
• Acrylic paint (if you follow our design you will need the colors red, orange, white, yellow, green, and gold)
• Poscha pens (these are optional – I did the green leaves and some of the detail work.  You could do all the motifs using this if you wish)
• Fine paintbrush and medium paintbrush
• Varnish (this ended up smudging my green details slightly so use cautiously)

Paint Your Background Color

The first step is to paint your background color.  I chose gold as the background color for the ornament that I was painting.  I wanted a mix of bold and metallic colors.  Upon painting the ornament, I immediately realized that it was going to need multiple coats as the paint was a bit streaky and more transparent.  It kind of had an interesting look even if I left it like that but I wanted a more opaque, even coverage so I painted additional coats. 

It took about 2-3 coats of paint for my background to be even.  Make sure if you paint multiple coats to allow each coat to dry before painting the next coat.

Start Painting the Motifs of your Hand-painted Christmas Ornament

Now it’s the fun part to paint the motifs.  Since I have become completely pattern-obsessed recently (I’ve gotten into Surface Pattern Design) I decided to paint a poinsettia pattern on my ornament.  My ornament is a little on the small side so I choose to keep the poinsettia motifs larger (instead of having lots of small motifs).

Paint the Red Petals

Start with painting your poinsettia petals.  Chose to use two colors for my poinsettia petals (red and an orangey-red that I mixed) to add a little more dimension to the motifs.  I start with painting only the red petals and paint four leaf-shaped petals in a cross pattern.  On my ornament, I painted 3 motifs spaced out around my ornament.  I could see that as with the background color that the motif color in order to not be transparent would need at least two coats of paint.  Let the first coat of paint dry and then go on to paint the next coat of paint.

Paint the Orangey-Red petals

After the red petals have dried, you can now start painting the orangey-red petals.  You should paint one leaf-shaped petal between the red petals for a total of 4 orangey-red petals.  I like the contrast of color that this provides but it’s totally up to you if you want a two-toned flower or not.  As with the red petals, these petals may need an extra coat or two of paint.  As with the other petals make sure to allow the coats of paint to dry before starting the next coat.

Paint the Green Petals

I decided to use my Poscha pens to paint the green leaves.  Since I had to paint around the petals a little bit it helped to keep my lines a little more precise.  The Poscha paint is pretty opaque so I only needed to do this one time. You can also absolutely use green acrylic paint in place of the Poscha or paint pen.

Add Some Details

Add some details to your hand-painted Christmas ornament. I added yellow dots and connecting lines to create the stamen of the flowers.  I did this with a Poscha pen but you can also do this with regular yellow paint and a small brush.  I also added some dots (in groups of three) in both white and green around the ornament with Poscha pens.  You could also use the end of a paintbrush or a dotting tool as alternatives.

I wanted to make some highlights within the flower and originally used a white Poscha pen and even started to outline the flowers in white, however, I did not at all like the look of this so decided to paint over it.  I then decided to just take the orangey-red color and add a little white and paint some soft and small brushstrokes from the center of the flower.  I liked the way this looked better.

Let the Ornament Dry

Let the ornament dry completely.

Varnish

The last step is to put a coat of varnish on the ornament if desired.  I used Decoart’s Duraclear Ultra-matte finish to do this.  It ended up slightly smudging the green details on my ornament so I would be cautious if doing this. For the ornaments that I made last year, we did not use varnish at all and they held up perfectly.

So there you have it – you’ve made your own DIY hand-painted DIY Christmas Ornament with Poinsettia design and perhaps have started a new family tradition yourself.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

We will be creating some more holiday posts very soon so visit us again soon.

As always live creatively.  Live Intentionally.

Love,